Published 4:00 am, Saturday, January 11, 2003

2003-01-11 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The United States and a number of other governments condemned on Friday North Korea's decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but President Bush remains committed to finding "a peaceful, multilateral solution" to the worsening standoff, his spokesman said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that North Korea must end its defiance of the international community in "a matter of weeks" or face action by the U.N. Security Council.

With tensions rising, two North Korean diplomats who had flown to Santa Fe, N.M., Thursday spent seven hours in private meetings with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who served in the Clinton administration as U.N. ambassador. The envoys unexpectedly announced that they would stay Friday night for a working dinner and continue their talks Saturday.

Richardson described the talks as "frank and candid" but did not provide details. "My hope is at the end of the meetings there will be positive results,

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but I don't want to speculate there will be any breakthroughs," he said.

BLAMING U.S.

In public, however, North Korea remained defiant. Its U.N. ambassador gave a rare news conference Friday to declare that a "vicious hostile policy" and nuclear threats by the United States had compelled the North to abandon the nonproliferation pact.

But Ambassador Pak Gil Yon said the country would not "at the moment" use its nuclear facilities for any purpose other than generating electricity and that the regime in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, might allow the United States to verify that it is not making nuclear weapons if Washington abandons what he called its hostile policies.

U.S. and international officials, as well as private nuclear policy experts,

said the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is the cornerstone of the global security structure that allows nations to have civilian nuclear power programs without creating fear among their neighbors that they are secretly producing nuclear weapons.

It would be especially destabilizing, they said, for North Korea to violate the treaty and then, when caught, to quit the international nonproliferation regime.

BUSH'S OPTIONS

At the same time, the Bush administration faces a stiff challenge in finding ways to force the North back into compliance with the treaty or to punish it for dropping out.

Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell would not say how long the president will give for his strategy of bringing international diplomatic pressure to bear on North Korea to produce results before bringing the problem before the Security Council.

"North Korea has decided that it wants to stick its finger in the eye of the world," Fleischer said, insisting that the North must be made to see that its nuclear program is not a matter of conflict with the United States but the object of international opprobrium.

On Friday, Britain, France, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea all denounced North Korea's decision or called on the regime to reverse course. Canada and Australia, which have diplomatic relations with North Korea, showed a willingness to send delegations to Pyongyang if necessary.

POWELL CHASTISES KOREA

"North Korea has thumbed its nose at the international community," Powell said, adding, "the Nonproliferation Treaty is an important international agreement, and this kind of disrespect cannot go undealt with."

Bush had a 17-minute telephone conversation Friday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who reiterated China's commitment to a nonnuclear Korean Peninsula, Fleischer said. Powell has spoken with the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Japan and the European Union, and has had three conversations with Richardson about the unorthodox visit by the North Koreans to the newly elected governor.

Richardson, acting in an unofficial capacity, held two hours of talks with Deputy Permanent U.N. Representative Han Song Ryol and his assistant, Mun Jong Chol, on Thursday night at the governor's mansion in Santa Fe, and five more hours of talks Friday.

Administration officials said they expect that Richardson, who is not acting as an official envoy, would merely repeat to the North Koreans in private the publicly stated positions of the U.S. government, and report the North Koreans' views to Washington.

THE DANGER

The International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, has estimated that North Korea could manufacture four to six nuclear bombs within six months now that it has expelled the agency's cameras and monitors from its nuclear facilities.

Agency staff members were conferring with member countries Friday to discuss convening an emergency meeting, probably next week, that could vote to send North Korea's noncompliance to the Security Council for discussion.

But the Security Council's options for dealing with North Korea are essentially the same as for Iraq: reprimands, sanctions or military action. Reprimands are likely to be ineffective against a regime that views the United Nations as a tool of what it views as the hegemonic United States.

Pak repeated Friday that North Korea would treat economic sanctions as an act of war.

And military action, even if approved by the council, would be highly problematic because about 40 percent of South Korea's population and 60 percent of its economic infrastructure lie within easy range of North Korea's artillery.

NORTH KOREA REJECTS NUCLEAR TREATY

North Korea said it would pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty today. Three months' notice is required under the terms of the treaty, but the North may argue it gave notice years ago when it first threatened to withdraw.

Treaty history:

Created in 1968, took effect in 1970, the treaty has been signed by 183 non- nuclear states (NNWS) and five nuclear-weapons states (NWS): the United States,